0413 Taliouine to Tazzarene

4^th Feb 2016

Saffron, desert, and revenge on Ali the salesman !

Great little camp spot last might in Taliouine, and a good supper in the little restaurant – tajine of course !  Once we got moving this morning, we went back the 1 km or so into town to find the Saffron Co-operative.  This is a centre for growing saffron, and the people have formed a co-op to help co-ordinate growing and sales.  Lovely gate into the co-op, but not much inside except a video in French, and then a look at some of the products.  Nice to see though.  Then it was off down the road.

First stop was only a few hundred metres out of town, over the bridge, and there was the big Kasbah we had seen on the hill when we drove in last night.  This is the Glaoui Kasbah, which is disintegrating fast, but some parts of it are still inhabited by the families who are descendants of the servants for the Glaoui.  The book said a caretaker would show us around, but when we got there we were told it is now so dangerous that you can no longer go in.  So we wandered around the outside for a while, and Janet wandered off up a laneway into the housing area for a while, before we called it a day.  But you can see glimpses of the former glory – Archways inside, remnants of tiles on the walls and frescoed archways. 

The road across towards Agdz crosses an enormous landscape that slowly climbs up over 1860 metres, and while not as spectacular as some other roads, as always in this country the scenery is always worth the drive.  Occasional plantations of almond trees, in blossom; Sudden rocky outcrops that are in contrast with the more common sandier plains; Plus we found out that the kind of stone gateways that appear in the middle of nowhere are in fact the marking of a border between provinces.  Dropping down a little from the high plain we passed salesmen on the road side trying to sell deserts geological samples, as well as pots and horns and other stuff”, and arrived in Tazenakht, which was (yet another) great little country town with people and donkeys walking everywhere.  You drive through at about 10 kmh because there really are people wandering across the road everywhere – But they all smile and wave at you – Just a very pleasant experience every time. 

We saw a fresh bread cart by the road, so stopped and Janet ran across to buy some.  I was stopped outside a restaurant that had its tajines all on the go for the lunch time business, and this was next door to a butcher, which made an interesting photo !!  From there it was on through more winding passes all at around 1500 metres, and several times we came across camels grazing along the road, many of them with young camels (foals ?).  Winding up one pass we found a lovely place to stop for lunch, and beside us were all sorts of little flowers to brighten the otherwise rocky roadside.

Not long after that, we passed an enormous mine of some kind that had all sorts of settling pits – Wonder what it was they were digging up.   Then we started to drop in towards Agdz, where we had passed through a few days earlier.  On our previous visit we had taken a message from a (supposedly) stranded motocycle, and ended up being given tea and dressed up as Berbers etc.  Janet had bought her blue berber scarf from this Ali, for whom we were supposedly doing a favour.  Over the past few days since we were last here, we had found out that Ali had charged Janet about twice the going rate for this scarf, so she was on a mission to recover her pride, if not some of her money !   We parked outside Ali’s shop while Janet went in – I wasn’t going to go anywhere near the shop while Janet was at work !!!

While she was in there, I saw this Transit van they use as a local bus around here, and it had a roof rack on the top, so it was quite high.  In the roof rack were 4 goats, but also a lot of long steel reinforcing bar.  The goats were wedged in between the steel, and I can only begin to imagine what an terrible ride the poor goats must have had along the bumpy country roads to wherever they were going !

After a little while, Janet eventually came out of Ali’s shop with a second scarf in her hand.  She had had to work very hard for it, drink more mint tea, and turn down an invitation to dinner tonight at Ali’s house !  But she had succeeded, and her pride was restored so we could leave Agdz without feeling ripped off !!

At Agdz we had to travel back down part of the green Draa Valley that we had been down a few days ago when we went to `M’Hamid, but then after about 20 kms we turned east again, and headed off towards (eventually) the sand dunes of Erg Chebbi.  The road is fairly flat through an enormous valley, but on both sides are the most amazing mountains and formations that keep one interested all the way.  Not many towns out here though, and as the afternoon started to wear on, we weren’t sure where we would find a camp site.  But we came into this delightful little town of Tazerine, and after driving slowly through the town found a camping sign.  We drove up a narrow road past crumbling mud buildings, and came across this beautiful little oasis camping site.  Not a soul in there apart from the owner, who welcomed us and showed us to a spot.  It isn’t really a motorhome camp site – in fact there are several Bedouin style tents obviously intended for local travellers !  But we had the place to ourselves, and settled in to this delightful setting amongst the gardens and palm trees.  Just a perfect little spot, and we enjoyed our supper before catching up on our accounts and photos, and heading for bed.  Not even any wifi available out here in the countryside, so we didn’t even have to worry ourselves about that tonight !  

Pics are here.  Will be annotated and mapped later :-  https://picasaweb.google.com/110185357936043625130/0413TalouineToTazzarene?authkey=Gv1sRgCNnx6O2ii8esJg